Painting Archives – Page 2 of 25

Jean-Paul Riopelle: 1923 – 2002

October 7, 2019 By Wendy Campbell

Born on October 7, 1923 in Montreal, Canada, Jean-Paul Riopelle is one of Canada’s most famous painters. Riopelle studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Montreal in 1942, and then at the École du Meuble, graduating in 1945. He studied with Paul-Émile Borduas under whose direction Riopelle created his first abstract painting.

Riopelle was a member of a group of writers and artists in Quebec called the Automatistes, led by Borduas, and was a signer of the Refus global manifesto. In 1946, he traveled to France, and then returned to settle the following year. Pioneering a style of painting where large quantities of coloured paints were thickly applied to the canvas with a trowel, Riopelle gained increasing success and immersion in the Parisian cultural scene. From 1949, he had numerous solo exhibitions in Canada, France, Italy, Spain, England, the United States and Sweden. He was represented in New York and participated in the biennials of contemporary art in Venice (1954) and Sao Paulo (1955). He spent his evenings in Paris bistros with friends including playwright Samuel Beckett and artist Alberto Giacometti.

In the 1960s, Riopelle renewed his ties to Canada. Exhibitions were held at the National Gallery of Canada (1963), and the Musée du Quebec held a retrospective in 1967. In the early 1970s, he built a home and studio in the Laurentians in Quebec. From 1974 he divided his time between St. Marguerite in Quebec, and Saint-Cyr-en-Arthies in France. Riopelle participated in his last exhibition in 1996. From 1994 until his death, he maintained homes in both St. Marguerite and Isle-aux-Grues, Quebec. Jean Paul Riopelle died at his home on Îsle-aux-Grues on March 12, 2002.

Riopelle received numerous awards and honorary degrees in his lifetime including the 1958 Prix International Guggenheim award, the 1962 Unesco prize, the 1973 Philippe Hébert Prize, and in 1975, he was inducted as a Companion of the Order of Canada.

Riopelle’s works are in collections around the globe including New York’s Guggenheim Museum and The Museum of Modern Art, the Galerie d’art Moderne in Basel, Switzerland, the Museum of Modern Art in Brazil, Toronto’s Art Gallery of Ontario, McMichael Canadian Art Collection and Ottawa’s National Gallery.

Sources: Gallerie Walter Klinkhoff, National Gallery of Canada, All-Art.org,

Katsushika Hokusai: 36 Views of Mount Fuji

October 1, 2019 By Wendy Campbell

Born in the autumn of 1760, Hokusai was a Japanese artist, ukiyo-e painter and printmaker of the Edo period. As a child, he learned woodblock cutting and was apprenticed to a book-lending shop. At the age of 19, he studied at the school of Katsukawa Shunsho, a leading woodblock artisan of the time, who was known for his portraits of popular actors.

Hokusai studied the techniques of the Kano Yusen, Tsutsumi Torin, and the Sumiyoshi Naikie schools. He was also greatly intrigued by the Western art that entered Japan through Dutch trading.

Beginning in 1814, Hokusai published his Hokusai Manga sketchbooks. The popular books contained thousands of drawings of people, religious figures, and animals.

Hokusai’s “36 views of Mount Fuji” are his best-known prints and are among the most famous of the Japanese woodcuts. He was 69 when he began the project and was already known for his painting, book illustration and surimono (commissioned prints) designs. Hokusai worked on the series for almost ten years before its publication in 1830 and they are considered by many to be his best work. After the original publication, due to their popularity, ten more prints were added.

Hokusai was a prolific artist and in his lifetime produced more than 30,000 print designs. He is said to have been an eccentric man with a restless nature. He changed his artistic name more than thirty times in his career, and changed his residence 93 times. He lived a long and productive life, continuing to produce prints well into his eighties.

Katsushika Hokusai died on April 18, 1849 at the age of 89. His last words were “If heaven gives me ten more years, or an extension of even five years, I shall surely become a true artist.”

To view the complete series of 36 (plus 10 extra) Views of Mount Fuji, visit Wikipedia.

Sources: Artelino, Wikipedia, Monash University

DAF Group Feature: Vol. 183

February 9, 2018 By Wendy Campbell

Your Weekly Mixx! DAF’s Weekly Mixx is a selection of contemporary art and/or art related videos chosen from artist and gallery submissions and from our own search for new and interesting works. This week, we feature the work of Nathan Durfee, Kevin Palme, Emma Balder, Roelof Jacob, Thomas Broadbent, Cathie Joy Young, Katarzyna and Marcin Owczarek and short motion capture animation of London Symphony Orchestra Musical Director Sir Simon Rattle in action by Digital designer Tobias Gremmler.

Joey Monsoon – Painting – 2018

January 8, 2018 By Wendy Campbell

It’s been a while since we posted about Columbus, Ohio based artist Joey Monsoon (featured) – and we don’t know why – there’s nothing out there like his work.

In the artists words: “Joey Monsoon’s paintings are an effort to construct revelations of our imperfections. Built on narrow structures of flesh and bone, the portraits depict the turbulence and resilience of the body. The subtle distortions of anatomy point inward to the marks of a life endured and overcome. The figures are isolated from contextual environs just as living tends to isolate the image one has of oneself. These paintings are brutal with beauty.”

See more of Monsoon’s artwork on his website joeymonsoon.com as well as on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

DAF Group Feature: Vol. 182

January 6, 2018 By Wendy Campbell

Your Weekly Mixx! DAF’s Weekly Mixx is a selection of contemporary art and/or art related videos chosen from artist and gallery submissions and from our own search for new and interesting works. This week, we feature the work of Herakut, Christopher David White, Wendy Campbell, John Wilhelm, Francois Nielly, Annalu Boeretto, DZIA, and Julie Veenstra.

Lucian Freud: 1922 – 2011

December 8, 2017 By Wendy Campbell

Lucien Freud – photo by Jane Brown

Born on December 8, 1922, in Berlin, Germany, Lucian Michael Freud was a British painter and draughtsman and considered to be the leading figurative painter of his time. Freud was the son of the architect Ernst Freud and the grandson of renowned neurologist and psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. His family fled from Nazi Germany to England in 1932, and Freud became a British citizen in 1939. He studied briefly at the Central School of Art in London and then at the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing, Dedham, under the painter Cedric Morris. Apart from spending a year in Paris and Greece, Freud lived and worked in the inner-city area of Paddington, London.

Freud’s early works were created with thin layers of paint depicting people, plants and animals in odd juxtapositions. He was also loosely associated with Neo-Romanticism as evidenced by the intense, bulbous eyes that are characterized in his early portraits.

In 1948, Freud married Kitty Garman, daughter of sculptor Jacob Epstein, with whom he had two daughters. The marriage ended in 1952 and in 1953, he married Caroline Blackwood, whom he divorced in 1959.

From the 1950s, Freud began to work in portraiture, often nudes, using an impasto technique. He began to pull away from Neo-Romanticism and developed his own style with portraits that were “more tactile, demonstrating an almost sculptural fascination with flesh and its contours. Freud abandoned the fine lines of his early work for broader strokes – swapping sable brushes for hogshair – and began to work with a more limited palette in which greasy whites and meaty reds predominated. His subjects were also often foreshortened or seen from a peculiar angle, a change in technique brought on by Freud’s beginning to paint while standing up rather than sitting.” Freud’s paintings are decidedly moody, depicting a “physical ugliness” and a sense of alienation.

Although working mostly with the human form, Freud also painted cityscapes seen from his studio window, as well as highly detailed nature studies.

On the personal side, Freud was known for having bitter feuds, most notably with his close friend Francis Bacon, his patron Lord Glenconner, and his dealer, James Kirkman. He is known to have had at least 13 children and rumoured to have many more. He was an eccentric and refused to have a telephone in his studio, and until the late 1980s he could only be contacted by telegram.

Freud exhibited regularly and had several retrospective exhibitions including at the Hayward Gallery, London, in 1998 and at Tate Britain in 2002, as well as solo exhibitions in New York, Edinburgh, Los Angeles, Venice, Dublin, The Hague and Paris. He was appointed a Companion of Honour in 1983, and a member of the Order of Merit in 1993.

Freud painted into his old age and vowed never to give up working, stating that he intended to “paint himself to death”. He died at his home on July 20, 2011 after a brief illness.

For full biographical information, visit the source links below.

Sources: MoMA, Telegraph.co.uk, Wikipedia, BBC

Norval Morrisseau: 1932-2007

March 14, 2017 By Wendy Campbell

Anishinaabe artist Norval Morrisseau (Copper Thunderbird) was born on March 14, 1932 in Fort William, Ontario, Canada. Morrisseau was a painter, carver, draughtsman, storyteller, teacher, Grand Shaman, and was dubbed the “Picasso of the North” by the French press. Morrisseau invented the pictographic style, now used by three generations of Aboriginal artists.

The first of five sons, Morrisseau was, according to Ojibway custom, raised by his grandparents. He learned about Ojibway beliefs and Anishinaabe cosmology from his grandfather who was a member of the Midewiwin religious society. As a child, he also learned about Christianity from his Catholic grandmother. In the 1970s, he became interested in the spiritual philosophy of Eckankar and its theories of astral visions and soul travel. All of these experiences influenced his artistic development.

Self-taught, Morrisseau began drawing the ancient stories of his people at a very young age. He was discouraged by some who believed that the communication of any content from the scrolls was strictly the task of a Shaman. While Morrisseau continued to paint, he studied his Anishinaabe heritage intensively until he himself became a Shaman.

In 1956, Morrisseau contracted tuberculosis and was admitted to the Thunder Bay Tuberculosis Sanatorium where he continued creating artwork. While there, he met Harriet Kakegamic and the couple married in 1957 and had six children.

In 1962, Morrisseau’s work attracted the attention of Toronto gallery owner Jack Pollack who organized a successful solo exhibition of the artist’s work. Over the next decade, Morrisseau developed his unique painting style termed the “Woodlands School” which was known for its vibrant colours, x-ray impressions, and flat forms separated by thick black lines. His art influenced the work on numerous First Nation artists including Daphne Odjig, and Carl Ray.

Morrisseau was also known as Copper Thunderbird, a name he was given as a young man. “In Ojibway culture, the thunderbird acts as a go-between; in combination with “copper,” the name suggests that Morrisseau has the ability to unite opposing powers of underwater/underearth and above sky.” Morrisseau signed all of his works in Cree syllabics as Copper Thunderbird.

“Through the 1970s and ’80s, Morrisseau’s “eccentricities” – binge drinking and often a hand-to-mouth street existence – were the despair of his friends and buyers of his work who were uncertain of the authenticity of his paintings. The artist admitted in 2004 he had signed other artists’ work ‘if they needed the money.'”

The prevalence of forgeries, however, became a great concern to Morrisseau, especially in his later years, and he actively sought to remove these from the marketplace. In 2005 he established the Norval Morrisseau Heritage Society (NMHS). The Society’s mandate is to catalogue and verify authentic Morrisseau paintings.

Morrisseau received numerous awards and honours in his lifetime including the Order of Canada in 1978, member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, recipient of Doctor of Laws, and Doctor of Letters, holder of the Eagle Feather (the highest honour awarded by the Assembly of First Nations), and Grand Shaman. As well, he was the only Canadian painter invited to exhibit in the Paris French Revolution bicentennial in 1989.

In the last years of his life, Morrisseau was unable to paint. Afflicted by Parkinson’s disease, Norval Morrisseau died on December 4, 2007 in Toronto General Hospital. He was buried in Northern Ontario next to the grave of his ex-wife Harriet, on Anishinaabe land.

Sources:Virtual Museum, Kinsman Robinson, McMichael Gallery, National Gallery of Canada, Maslak McLeod Gallery, Wikipedia, Toronto Star

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Michelangelo: 1475-1564

March 6, 2017 By Wendy Campbell

Born on March 6, 1475, in Caprese, Italy, Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni was a Renaissance sculptor, painter, draftsman, architect, and poet. Michelangelo was thought of as the greatest living artist in his lifetime, and is considered to be one of the greatest artists of all time.

In 1488, at the age of 13, Michelangelo apprenticed with Domenico Ghirlandaio, Florence’s best fresco painter. Following that, he studied with sculptor Bertoldo di Giovanni in the Medici gardens in Florence. During this time, he was surrounded by prominent people including Lorenzo de’ Medici (known as “Lorenzo the Magnificent”), who introduced him to poets, artists, and scholars in his inner circle.

Early on, Michelangelo strove for artistic perfection in his depictions of the human body. He studied anatomy with great interest and at one point even gained permission from the prior of the church of Santo Spirito to study cadavers in the church’s hospital. It was at this time that Michelangelo began a life-long practice of preparatory drawing and sketching for his works of art and architecture.

After Medici’s death in 1492, Michelangelo left Florence, traveled to Bologna and eventually to Rome, where he continued to sculpt and study classical works. In 1498-99, the French Ambassador in the Holy See commissioned Michelangelo to sculpt the “Pietà” for Saint Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican.

In 1501, Michelangelo returned to Florence where he began work on his famous marble statue “David”. This work established Michelangelo’s prominence as a sculptor of incredible technical skill and innovation.

In 1503, Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to create his papal tomb which features the famous statue of Moses. The artist worked on the tomb for 40 years, stopping often to work on other commissions including the painting of more than 300 figures on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel from 1508-12.

From 1534 to 1541, Michelangelo produced an enormous fresco “The Last Judgment” in the Sistine Chapel. “A depiction of the second coming of Christ and the apocalypse, the work was controversial even before its unveiling because of the depictions of nude saints in the papal chapel, which were considered obscene and sacrilegious.”

From about 1516, Michelangelo began to focus his attention more on architecture. In 1534, he designed plans for the Medici Tombs and the Laurentian Library attached to the church of San Lorenzo. In 1536, he designed the Piazza del Campidoglio, and in 1546 he was appointed architect of Saint Peter’s Basilica and designed its dome. From 1561-65, Michelangelo’s final plans were for the Porta Pia, a gate in the Aurelian Walls of Rome.

More than any other artist, “Michelangelo elevated the status of the artist above the level of craftsman. His deeply felt religious convictions were manifested in his art. For him, the body was the soul’s prison. By using movement, monumental forms, and gesture to express spiritual urges, he opened up new artistic vistas in the direction of Mannerism and the Baroque.”

Michelangelo was known to be a complicated man. “Arrogant with others and constantly dissatisfied with himself, he nonetheless authored tender poetry. In spite of his legendary impatience and indifference to food and drink, he committed himself to tasks that required years of sustained attention, creating some of the most beautiful human figures ever imagined.”

“He constantly cried poverty, even declaring to his apprentice Ascanio Condivi: ‘However rich I may have been, I have always lived like a poor man’, yet he amassed a considerable fortune that kept his family comfortable for centuries. And though he enjoyed the reputation of being a solitary genius and continually withdrew himself from the company of others, he also directed dozens of assistants, quarrymen, and stonemasons to carry out his work.”

Michelangelo’s final work in marble, the “Rondanini Pietà,” was left unfinished. He died in Rome on February 18, 1564 at the age of 88.

Sources: The Getty Museum, Wikipedia, Michelangelo.syr.edu

Franz Marc: 1880-1916

February 8, 2017 By Wendy Campbell

Born on February 8, 1880 in Munich, Germany, Franz Marc was a principal painter of the German Expressionist movement. The son of a professional landscape painter, Marc chose to become an artist after a year of military service interrupted his plans to study philology. Marc studied at the Kunstakademie in Munich under Gabriel von Hackl and Wilhelm von Diez from 1900-1902. In 1903 and in 1907 he visited Paris where he was introduced to Japanese woodcuts and the work of Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, the Cubists, and the Expressionists. During this period, Marc also made a steady income by giving animal anatomy lessons to art students.

Marc had his first solo show at the Kunsthandlung Brackl, Munich in 1910. He supported the Neue Künstlervereinigung München (Munich New Artist’s Association), and became a member of the group early in 1911. After the split of the NKVM, Marc formed Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), artist circle with August Macke, Wassily Kandinsky, and other artists. The group’s first exhibition was held on December 1911 at Heinrich Thannhauser’s Moderne Galerie in Munich. “Der Blaue Reiter Almanac” was published with lead articles by Marc in May 1912.

Marc’s paintings were concerned with the need for harmony and union with nature. “Believing that animals achieved this harmony more successfully than human beings, he used them for the subject matter of his paintings. Early in his career he painted graceful and lyrical horses, cows, and deer inhabiting beautiful and peaceful landscapes. The scenes were painted with bright pure colors and filled with light.”

In 1912, Marc met Robert Delaunay, whose use of color and futurist method affected his work greatly. He became influenced by Futurism and Cubism, and his art became stark and abstract in nature.

Marc was conscripted during World War I and was sent to the front lines. The great loss of life deeply affected him, including the many animals that were killed in the war. One of his best known paintings, Tierschicksale (Fate of the Animals), was completed in 1913 when “the tension of impending cataclysm had pervaded society”. On the back of the canvas, Marc wrote, “Und Alles Sein ist flammend Leid” (“And all being is flaming agony”). Marc wrote to his wife of the painting, it “is like a premonition of this war – horrible and shattering. I can hardly conceive that I painted it.”

Franz Marc was killed on March 14, 1916 at the Battle of Verdun.

Sources: Guggenheim, Wikipedia, Albright-Knox Art Gallery,

Paul Cézanne: 1839-1906

January 19, 2017 By Wendy Campbell

Born on January 19, 1839 in Aix-en-Provence, France, Paul Cézanne is considered by many to be one of the most important painters of the second half of the 19th century. From 1849 – 1852, he studied at the Ecole Saint-Joseph and from 1852 to 1858 at the Collège Bourbon. In 1857 he attended the Ecole Municipale de Dessin in Aix-en-Provence, where he studied under Joseph Gibert. In 1859, to satisfy his father’s wishes, he began to study law at the Université d’Aix. He also attended the Ecole Municipale de Dessin again from 1858 – 1861. In 1861 Cézanne abandoned his law studies and moved to Paris to pursue his career as a painter.

In 1862 Cézanne met Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir with whom he formed lasting friendships. In 1863, his paintings were shown in the Salon des Refusés, which exhibited works rejected by the Paris Salon. The Salon rejected all of Cézanne’s submissions between 1864 to 1869.

With the onset of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, Cézanne returned to Aix-en-Provence and then L’Estaque, where he continued painting. In the 1870’s he was influenced by Impressionism, particularly the work of Camille Pissarro. Like the Impressionists, Cézanne considered the study of nature essential to painting, however, he opposed many aspects of the Impressionist aesthetic. “Believing colour and form to be inseparable, he tried to emphasize structure and solidity in his work, features he thought neglected by Impressionism. For this reason he was a central figure in Post-impressionism.” In 1874, he participated in the first Impressionist Exhibition, as well as the third in 1877.

In 1882 the Salon accepted his work for the first and only time. Beginning in 1883 Cézanne lived in the South of France, returning to Paris occasionally. Cézanne’s first solo show was held at Ambroise Vollard’s gallery in Paris in 1895. Following that exhibition, his recognition increased, and in 1899 he participated in the Salon des Indépendants in Paris. In 1900 he participated in the Centennial Exhibition in Paris and, in 1903, the Berlin and Vienna Secessions. In 1904 he exhibited at the Salon d’Automne, Paris and had a solo exhibition at the Galerie Cassirer in Berlin.

Between 1883 and 1895, Cézanne’s paintings accented mass and structure, and his composition therefore became more architectural. His move away from Impressionism stemmed from his belief that a painter must interpret as well as record the scene before him. His brushstrokes became broader and thicker, and the use of a palette knife was sometimes evident.

In the final years of Cézanne’s life, many of his landscapes “emphasized the rough appearance of sites, mixing wild vegetation with rocks in unusual, asymmetric framing. His composition became less serene and his colour more violent.” In several works, parts of the canvas were left bare and were painted with highly diluted oils. His fascination with nature continued but “the objective sought is no longer to describe reality but to express a spiritual concept”.

Cézanne rarely dated and often did not sign his paintings making it difficult to determine the chronology of his works with any precision. In his last years his work began to influence many younger artists, including the Fauvists and the Cubists. His influence reached well into the 20th century as well.

Paul Cézanne died of pneumonia on October 22, 1906. He was buried in his hometown of Aix-en-Provence.

For a more detailed biography of Cézanne, visit the MoMA website.